Holiday Cheer?!

I love Christmas a much as the next person, and certainly more than some people, but for crying out loud it is November. I think it gets worse every year. I am just not ready for decorations yet, and there are TWO local radio stations now playing ONLY Christmas music. Stand aside, I am going to be ill. When it gets to be mid December I might tune in, but now I frantically skip those stations when I have my headphones on while working. I just think it's all kind of disgusting, and strays so far from the spirit of Christmas.

Yesterday started out gloomy and gray, windy and wet. We need rain though, so that's not a bad thing. Got a little over a quarter of an inch, and I'm hoping that will be enough to kick start some grass in the pastures (the horses are eating way more hay than normal for this time of year). I was looking at pictures I'd taken of Shylah the other day (and pics I took this time last year) and the difference in the pastures is really weird. Right now they are barren, not a green speck in sight, and last year there was a good couple inches of grass already growing. I read in the paper there were something like 12 days over 70 degrees this November, while last year had none. Mind you, the weather has been GORGEOUS and absolutely perfect for horse training and horse riding, but it's weird. The chickens are all out of whack too. This is the screwiest year for molts. Usually they lose and regrow all their feathers between, oh, July and October, depending on the individual, but I think there are some out there that never molted, and quite a few of them just started within the last couple weeks. Very weird.

Anyway, the rain cleared up and the day ended with breeze blowing enormous pink and gold clouds across a sunny sky. Amazing. I love this time of year. Today is sunny, windy, and cool.

I stayed up drawing til 11:45 last night. I really do well at night, which offsets my general lack of productivity in the mornings. And actually I think it's working out pretty well, because now I knowingly give myself "mornings off" to run errands, work the horses, read (I just started a book about art pricing!), etc., and I can still get my hours in by working really late (I may even try to push those hours back more, and go til after midnight...we'll see). Seems to be a good system, and since I pretty much have no life anyway, it's not like it infringes on anything. :-D

I oiled most of my tack today, which took several hours, and I didn't even finish because I ran out of oil half way through the saddle, so I'll have to get more on Monday. Not sure what inspired me to do that today. I was just going to oil the reins because they are still annoyingly stiff, but then I figured I may as well do everything. I guess having nice tack is inspiration enough to take good care of it!

Well, time to go feed the critters.